Yes, let's just play against sides that don't ship 8 goals a game, that will be so much more convenient.....
Seriously though, how are they an inconvenience? If anything, they are the exact opposite of that for us or any team who plays them? It just seems to me that if we can't moan about England then people will just pick on something to negate our achievement of qualifying.
Nothing wrong with San Marino qualifying the way they do at the moment. No, they don't win any games, but that is their problem to fix rather than for countries like ours' to say we shouldn't be playing them.
This has nothing to do with knocking England, that's just a daft thing to say and not one person has said anything to that effect.
It's easy and indeed true to say that it's not our problem to fix, we just need to beat whoever is drawn against us and we've done it. But for me, the longer term interests of the game in these countries and in general would be better served if they had a better matched oppos
So how about the bottom ranked sixteen teams play in four groups of four to win eight berths into the main draw? You could allow the four group winners to progress and have 2nd vs. 3rd cross-group play-offs for the remaining four places. :-)
Most Football competitions involve some element and/or combination of prequalification, phased entry or seeding and both the EC and European WC Qualifying Competitions might benefit from this. The so-called Minnows might also get more out of a few genuinely competitive matches, rather than chasing shadows for 90 minutes as, for example, San Marino did at Wembley recently.
However, I suspect the reason such a change isn't on the agenda is logistics. The quick fire knock out format used for the Champions League wouldn't be terribly satisfactory because it would limit some countries to just two competitive games every two years. On the other hand a more extended league format simply might not be pratcical.
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It's easy and indeed true to say that it's not our problem to fix, we just need to beat whoever is drawn against us and we've done it. But for me, the longer term interests of the game in these countries and in general would be better served if they had a better matched oppos
However, I suspect the reason such a change isn't on the agenda is logistics. The quick fire knock out format used for the Champions League wouldn't be terribly satisfactory because it would limit some countries to just two competitive games every two years. On the other hand a more extended league format simply might not be pratcical.